Game Time For Gold In Proposed World Of Warcraft Update

A forum post by Blizzard has offered some insight into what the company has got in mind for World of Warcraft and it includes a PLEX-esque system for exchanging gold for game time.

It's not a definite announcement yet, more of a "we're exploring the idea and want to know what you reckon" kind of deal.

"We’re exploring the possibility of giving players a way to buy tradable game-time tokens for the purpose of exchanging them in-game with other players for gold," reads the official post. "Our current thought on this is that it would give players a way to use their surplus gold to cover some of their subscription cost, while giving players who might have less play time an option for acquiring gold from other players through a legit and secure system."

What Blizzard are seeing is a way of making gold-selling a legitimate (and controllable) in-game activity rather than keeping it in the shady fringes. It's not a plan without possible pitfalls, though. One of these is that it could just mean shady activity takes on a slightly different form – selling stolen or fraudulently purchased game time tokens in order to exchange them for gold, for example. The ability to keep the system in check and usable will therefore depend on how it's implemented.

Obviously the go-to example for this sort of system working well is in EVE with PLEX, but Wildstar also introduced a similar system with CREDD which can be exchanged for gold in-game.

Other nuggets of information from the post include the fact that the team is working on ways of tweeting screenshots from in-game, more direct routes from flight-masters, a UI overhaul for eSports events, character model tweaks, garrison developments and so on. The full post is here for your delectation and/or delight.